Tamil Yoga Siddha
Research Project:
The Basic Difficulties (Part 3)
By Dr. T. N. Ganapathy, Ph D
Director of the Tamil Siddha Yoga Research Project
The following article, the second in a series,
is excerpted from our forthcoming book, "The Yoga of Tamil
Siddha Boganathar" by Dr. T.N. Ganapathy In the first
article, the basic difficulty, the term "Siddha" itself,
was discussed. The present article discusses other difficulties
involved in studying the works of the Siddhas.
6. The philosophy of the human body
All the orthodox systems suspected the Siddhas
because they advocated the theory that one can attain freedom
or moksa with the body. According to the Tamil Siddhas the
aim of yoga sadhana is kayasiddhi or the perfection of the
body. Orthodox Saiva Siddhantins treated the Siddhas as religious
outcastes and had excluded the Siddha view from both their
vast cannonical corpus and socio-philosophic theories.67 It
has also been reported that the pandarams (ascetics) of the
Saiva class sought after copies of the Siddha poetry and destroyed
them.68 There was a general opinion among scholars that most
of the Siddhas were plagiarists and impostors and eaters of
opium and dwellers in the land of dreams and they have been
systematically stigmatized as a deviation from the caste Hindu
conformist model. The Siddha doctrines and poems do not get
the "official" sanction from the "elite" and
the "educated" though their songs are popular among
the masses in Tamilnadu.
Let us understand the Siddha conception of
the human body, which is unique and which is not accepted by
any system of Indian philosophy; it is an unacknowledged postulate
in Indian tradition. In Tamil Siddha philosophy the human body
has acquired an importance it had never before attained in
the spiritual history of India. According to the Siddhas, an
adept's experimental field is always himself and his body,
which contains in itself an immortal essence. The ordinary
human body can be and should be transformed into a divine body
and must be made an aid to liberation. The Siddha view of body
as a moksa sadhana is known as kaya sadhana. In Tirumantiram
we come across a number of verses praising the importance of
the human body as a ladder to mukti. In one celebrated verse
Tirumular calls the human body as the abode of God69. In Tamil
Siddha literature the temple is an image of both the macrocosm
and the microcosm, the cosmic man as well as the inner being
of man. The various parts of the structure of the temple are
designed as features of the human body70. The Tamil Siddhas
understood the human body as a threshold, a passage to the
ultimate Reality. Sivavakkiyar is fond of using the expression
threshold, i.e., "vasal" in Tamil and he calls the
human body as a threshold where God resides. The concept "threshold" is
a mystical one and the body is one such mystical threshold,
the other threshold being the guru. In Siddha literature the
threshold is a mystical thing. It is a boundary between two
worlds, the ordinary, profane world and the sacred world beyond.
It is a point where we pass from one mode of being to another,
from one level of consciousness to another. The term "vasal" used
by the Tamil Siddhas stand for the moment when we ourselves
open up to new depths of our being. They say that one need
not go to places of pilgrimage or study sastras when the threshold
is in oneself71. The idea of the body as a microcosm of Reality
received a spiritual, mystical denotation in the Tamil Siddhas
as against the purely physical denotation of it in the other
traditions. The inter-relations of man's body and the universe
(that is Reality) have to be realized by spiritual endeavour.
Kaya sadhana is such an endeavour. Another important aspect
of the Siddha view of the human body is nyasa, which consists
of feeling the God or powers representing the Gods in different
parts of the body.
In Siddha literature we come across the following
types of bodies- the sthula-deha, the yoga-deha, the siddha-deha,
the pranava or mantra deha and the jnana or the divya deha.
Turning the sthula-deha into divya-deha is kaya sadhana. Sivavakkiyar
explains the transformation of the physical body into a divine
body on the analogy of a worm turning itself into a butterfly72.
Let us state briefly the various stages involved in kaya sadhana.
Sthula sarira is the unripe, ordinary, physical body not disciplined
by yoga. It is a "deceptive threshold", and one has
to "open" it , i.e., go beyond it to achieve kaya
siddhi. Sivavakkiyar says that people should protect, immortalize,
and preserve the body through the method of yoga just as they
would protect a beautiful lady of the house73. When the sthula
sarira is disciplined by yoga it becomes ripe or pakva. Pambatticcittar
uses the term "pudam" in Tamil which is the equivalent
of "making one ripe" pakva74. Agatiyar Pancacaram-37
speaks about removing the unwanted elements from the body through
the process of burning, (i.e., Kundalini agni).75 Once the
deha is hardened by yoga, the internal forces help the sadhaka
to arouse the kundalini in him, which passes through the six
adharas. It is a process of the acquirement of yogic powers,
siddhis, leading to a siddha deha, where the body can do and
be anything at the will of the sadhaka, since it does not have
to adhere to the spatio-temporal laws or the laws of space
and time of the ordinary body. After the attainment of the
siddhis, the siddha deha is turned into a mantra deha called
pranava tanu. The pranava deha is a body consisting of the
sacred formula "AUM". It is the body of nada or sound.
This yogin's body is accompanied by certain mystic sound vibrations
in the form of mantra called "AUM Namasivaya". The
yogin's body at this stage is not different from the mantra,
that is, the body gets transformed into a sound-form, mantra-form.
This body is called pranava or mantra deha. We find a description
of this body, mantira meni(mantra deha) in Tirumantiram76.
The human figure representing the pranava deha is called the
mantirmeni chakkaram in Tamil Siddha literature. In a Tamil
work called Tirumantiramalai-300 we find a description of how
the fifty- one letters of the alphabet constitute the various
parts of the body77.
According to the Tamil Siddhas the man with
the pranava deha is a jivan-mukta, "the man liberated
while living". In Tirumantiram we find a description of
the characteristrics of a jivan mukta78. In Siddha philosophy
there is no videha-mukti(post-mortem liberation) but only jivan
mukti; for videha mukti is, at best, only a hypothesis. A jivan
mukta does not possess a personal consciousness, but a witnessing
consciousness. Even though he acts in the world, he does not
have the sense of "I act". He sees all the usual
things in a miraculous new light as he has entered into the
heart of reality. The Bauls of Bengal call this state of jivan
mukta as jiyanta-mora, "being dead while yet alive".
We find similar expressions used by many Tamil Siddhas. As
a Taoist thinker has said, "The perfect man employs his
mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing; it rejects nothing. It
receives, but does not keep". In Siddha philosophy a jivan
mukta does not die to attain liberation, but is transformed
into the very mode of liberation, viz., the divya deha. When
the jivan mukta gets into divya deha he becomes one with Eternity,
a paramukta. The "either-or" category of logic regarding
his existence or non-existence does not arise in the case of
a Siddha who has attained the divya deha. Divya deha is a situation
in which one is participating in immortality from now onward
and from this present world; and immortality should not be
conceived as a survival, post mortam. The attainment of divya
deha is not videha mukti. There are standing examples against
videha mukti, such as Saint Nandanar, Saint Manikkavasagar,
Sri Andal(merging with the Lord at Srirangam), Sri Caitanya
and Sri Ramalinga Swamigal, who have attained divya deha. It
is highly interesting and instructive to note the process which
the great yoga master Sri Krsna adopted for transforming his
material body into a divya deha when he desired to leave the
world. He, in concentration, executed a yoga process termed "agneyi-yoga-dharma",
i.e., the process of radiating inner fire, by which he reduced
his body to a subtler form, and with that body he left the
world. This is mentioned in the Bhagavata.
The divya deha is called cinmaya, "the
body of light". It is a "body" of infinite space,
vettaveli, a vast expanse without any determination79. At this
stage the "body" glows with the fire of immortality.
It is called "the body of light", oli udambu in Tamil.
As Tirumular says figuratively even the "hairs" of
this transmuted body will shine80. When a Siddha attains divya
deha, he attains Sivahood. Hence divya deha is referred to
as kailaya deha81. In Siddha mysticism the liberation of the
soul is not conceived as a purusartha; rather we have the concept
of jivan mukti or liberation within the span of life in the
form of the attainment of immortality.
Without entering into the details we may
say that in Tamil Siddha literature we come across three methods
by which the human body can be transmuted into immortality.
First, there is the method of alchemic process (containing
Siddha medicine) which, instead of being performed in the laboratory,
takes place in the body and consciousness of the sadhaka. In
Bogar 700, we find a reference to the method of preparation
of the greatest of medicines -muppu-by advocating which, the
body will turn into divya deha, an immortal golden body82.
The second is the method of kundalini yoga, which is the method
adopted by all Tamil Siddhas. A third method that is suggested
is what is called ulta sadhana "contrary practice" which
states that the sex sentiment properly cultivated may lead
man back to the very heart of reality. When sex energy is sublimated
and transmuted the yogin rises aove the sense of identity with
the physical body. This state is technically called urdhareta.
Agastiyar Jnanam, Bogar's poems and Tirumantiram speak of the
third process and assure us that there is no death for a man
who adopts it perfectly83. Following the footsteps of Bogar,
this technique is taught, of converting sex energy into spiritual
energy in the Kriya Yoga centers around the world84. The way
to overcome physical evil is to accept the Siddha doctrine
of body. For, in acceptance there is transcendence. (to
be continued)
Copyright. Babaji's Kriya Yoga and Publications. 2002
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